I regretfully report that a USD student has died, killed by a marked cop car, 130 am, on Linda Vista Road between Goshen and Brunner streets.

In 2016, the city developed a Comprehensive Active Transportation Strategy for Linda Vista that recommended installing a high-visibility ladder-style crosswalk and a pedestrian-activated high-intensity signal beacon near a staircase that serves as a shortcut to and from the University of San Diego campus

The estimated cost of the improvements was $111,000.

In order to save money, the improvement to increase pedestrian safety next to a major university was ignored. 

The damn city should be sued for ignoring it's duty, and responsibility to safety, after it conducted an investigation of how to prevent pedestrian deaths, and was informed that a crosswalk overpass walking bridge would get students off the road

Hell, the university is also liable IMHO for not insisting that the city build the walking bridge

And HOW does a cop in a cop car STRIKE and kill a person? Probably using a cell phone or the unit laptop... which the state decided wasn't "unsafe" for cops, just illegally unsafe for all the rest of us. 

So, yeah, the city of San Diego, the SDPD, and USD, I'd say they all ought to line up across the court room from the plaintiff, and try to weasel out of the jury's focus. 

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/safety-improvements-proposed-years-ago-site-fatal-usd-student-crash/4038453/

related news item, 

a city council committee meeting Wednesday, which highlighted the $116 million cost of settlements and judgements involving SDPD since fiscal year 2017.

In fiscal year 2026 alone, SDPD settlements and judgements reached a record $42 million.

a $10 million settlement for the life of Arabella McCormack, 11, who died of severe abuse in August 2022.
“An SDPD officer was alleged to have visited the home, and contributed to the abuse by directly supplying wooden paddles, not paddle, paddles to the family,”

$30 million went to the family of Konoa Wilson, the 16-year-old shot and killed by a San Diego police officer last year while running from gunfire.

A cop shot Konoa in the back. 

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san-diego-police-lawsuit-payouts-top-116-million-over-10-years/4038308/

SDPD Annual Budget is 32% of San Diego's total General Fund expenditures.

San Diego's police misconduct settlement payouts are roughly 1/16th the SDPD budget

The San Diego Police Department (SDPD) operates on an annual General Fund budget of $703.5 million,

police-related settlements and judgments have average about $42.5 million annually 

ACLU data indicates that SDPD payouts are roughly 15 million higher than the settlements paid by all other city departments combined.

A fuel leak and a backfire, and the car is toast. Let this catastrophe encourage the rest of us to make sure we have a (fifty pounder) CO2 fire extinguisher handy in the garage, and a couple smaller portable ones in the car between the seat and the door kickplate (where mine are stored)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3603991166332428/permalink/26711003038537914

You'll never regret having a 50 pound CO2 fire extinguisher at home, or in the garage. That's just smart planning for fire prevention no matter what the cause or location

pretty stupid of the city to arrest the guy painting the cross walk BEFORE he was finished.... think of the savings to the taxpayer if the city waited for the work to be completed first!

the street safety activist was arrested for misdemeanor vandalism charges after Los Angeles police arrested him in December for painting unauthorized crosswalks in Westwood.

a group of volunteers, known as Peoples’ Vision Zero, were painting the third of four crosswalk legs at the Westwood intersection. As of Tuesday, the city has not repainted, eliminated or finished the crosswalks at the intersection.

https://laist.com/brief/transportation/vision-zero-jonathan-hale-la-westwood

Headlights. Indicators. Trunk releases. Seatbelts. Airbags. Just about any part of a car you can think of has evolved through safety regulations... except the door handle.

However, after a series of deadly incidents where doors wouldn’t open, regulators are now examining if electrically activated door handles are suitable for road-going automobiles. 

Wasn't the danger of these complicated electronic door handles easy to foresee?

It’s not hard to find case reports of fatal incidents involving vehicles with electronic door handles—both inside and out. Multiple cases have involved occupants burning alive inside Tesla vehicles, in which electronic door handles failed after a crash. Passengers inside the vehicles have failed to escape due to not finding emergency release door pulls hidden in the door panels, while bystanders have similarly been unable to use the retracted outside door handles to free those trapped inside.

https://hackaday.com/2025/11/26/chinese-regulators-may-kill-retractable-car-door-handles-that-never-should-have-existed/

Forklift safety video, with a sense of humor

 

I would call out the person that sent me the link, but they didn't use their name, and instead, went with the "unknown" 

But, cool video, thank you! 

Engineered Materials Arresting Systems, runway cushion safety technology, has been installed at Philadelphia International Airport, and is designed to help stop an aircraft that overruns the end of the runway.

The mesh-concrete padding is actually meant to be crushed. 

It almost encapsulates the plane's landing gear to bring it to a complete stop. 

Of 24 real-world arrestments from 747s to business jets, it's been 100% successful

https://6abc.com/post/philadelphia-international-airport-marks-completion-runway-safety-project-installation-engineered-material-arresting-system/17652799/

reminder to carry a fire extinguisher in your car, especially in anything more than 15 years old.

 This appears to have been a fire that started behind the alternator, in the gas pump area. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2790063151188253&set=pcb.23915169851511685

the use of front-facing brake lights (FBLs) on cars are being investigated.

A study from Graz University of Technology in Austria suggests that up to 17% of crashes can be avoided outright, and up to 25% can result in reduced injury severity, with the use of front brake lights.

FBLs can show whether an approaching driver is slowing down or continuing at a constant or increasing speed. That way, you can make a more informed decision about whether it’s safe to go.

The study recreated 200 real car crashes to determine reaction times, carefully analyzing each step of how the collision took place and when the car/s started braking. Next, they recreated these accidents but added FBLs to cars coming from the front or side, while assuming that the quicker reaction times would apply when these lights are illuminated. 

According to the simulations, 7.5 to 17% of the original crashes could have been avoided entirely with FBLs, and as many as 25.5% of those crashes would reduce the severity of injuries, due to the drivers responding more quickly. Even a half-second quicker reaction time can significantly influence the severity of a crash.

https://www.autoblog.com/news/new-study-says-front-brake-lights-can-save-lives

I was stuck in rush hour traffic again yesterday after work, and like usual, looked around at the tires on the cars around me... this guy was in front of me.

 That's just going to wear down a tiny bit more before blowing out and causing a big problem... but he took off in another direction than I was going, in a big hurry. There was no catching up to him.

But I post this so you all don't forget, that there are some unsafe cars on the road. It's not JUST the drivers, and the ladders and junk on the roads themselves. 

traffic safety activist, outspoken pedestrian safety advocate, Kevin Cox, drew a crossing with chalk. Charlottesville, Virginia, charged him with vandalism. Then, city workers covered it with black paint. Yup. They hate that guy for always ringing their doorbell....

Cox said he had since pleaded with city officials to lay down a crosswalk at that intersection. Those efforts went nowhere, so he said he took a line marker as well as a can of spray chalk to fashion a makeshift crosswalk on 17 May – a Saturday – as a crowd of onlookers cheered him.

He also reportedly wrote an email to Charlottesville’s city manager which read: “There is a marked crosswalk now [at the intersection in question] in spite of you … It’s chalk[,] not paint[.] Please replace it with a real one.”

Police subsequently called Cox and accused him of committing vandalism. He soon surrendered and was booked with intentional destruction of property, which carries up to a year in jail as well as a maximum fine of $2,500, WVIR reported.

a trial date is tentatively scheduled for 14 July.

“They have provoked me,” Cox told WVIR. “It’s not going to stop me.

“This is a common cause for many people in the city. It’s all about our day-to-day quality of life on the streets and the sidewalks, and everyone is affected by that.”

Pedestrian deaths on US roads reached their highest number in a single year in more than four decades in 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/04/virginia-crosswalk-vandalism-charge-charlottesville

https://www.wilx.com/2025/05/28/man-faces-charges-drawing-chalk-crosswalk-intersection-he-says-is-dangerous/

Keep in mind, they painted the crosswalk, a safety feature the city is responsible to make, black, so it isn't a safety feature anymore. 

They didn't make a better one, the removed the one that someone else made at no charge to the city. 

Brain dead morons. 

ok, this is a reason to not stand too close to dragsters, when nitrous backfires.

 

See a much better view of this at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1785529692009038 

Arizona and California highway patrol are catching a lot of safety fails. Just letting you know that there are a lot more vehicles ready to cause problems on the freeways than you'd believe...

https://www.facebook.com/AZDPSHighwayPatrol

https://cdllife.com/2025/here-are-some-of-the-eye-popping-commercial-vehicle-violations-inspectors-have-spotted-at-scale-houses-lately/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064445242178

Since 2015, Nissan has issued three safety recalls for the 2013-2018 Altima hood latch, after finding, "...the hood could unexpectedly open while driving, increasing the risk of a vehicle crash."

The 2015 Altima has a five-star safety rating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

It also has 891 consumer complaints, 53 mention problems with the hood latch, and some of those complaints were made after the recall fix.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/boston/news/nissan-altima-hood-iteam-recall-fix

The LumberZone in Steinbach, Manitoba must have ran out of attention span... they loaded the trailer, but didn't use a single strap on the underside of the trailer to secure the load.

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=9037690643024144 for the video of this rig driving past the dash cam of another trucker

If you see something, say something... the life you save might be a very important one to you, or to me, or to someone who needs someone else on the road to make it home alive

some people don't believe that giraffes are dangerous, but, after seeing this? I'm going to be cautious driving near them. You know... if they escape from the San Diego Zoo... (it could happen!)

 https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2025/02/giraffe-is-gonna-get-you.html

always look to see if there is oncoming traffic, regardless of the green light

https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2025/02/wow.html

ever wonder how people can be so ignorant of the condition, and obvious safety issues with their vehicle? I see at least one flat tire a week on the interstates while commuting, for example, and this moron

 I saw this hood existing only because of the safety latch... how long it can keep that hood from flying up I don't know, and didn't wait behind this car to find out

an example of why bridges have load limits posted... some people were not smart enough to avoid weak bridges

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=385588044303660&set=a.137126059149861

summer warm weather is here... if you're going to insist on leaving your dogs in your vehicle (stupid dog killing idea) remember to crack the damn window

 If you don't crack the window, expect a good samaritan to come by and smash it for you so the dog can get cooled down instead of baked. 

Yes, cops kill their dogs by leaving them locked in the police cruiser, every year. I've posted about that

did you know, you need to check your helmet for mini-cobras?

https://www.tumblr.com/viejospellejos/742413596055732224?source=share

and that's your helmet safety PSA for the day